Time Will Tell (3 page)

‘Without. But don't you go getting any ideas. He's in Whyalla for a while and wants to escape for the weekend – no doubt for more photography. It's purely platonic.'

‘How do you know?'

‘He rang the other night.'

‘No, silly, how do you know it's purely platonic? Especially now there's no Elizabeth in tow.'

Emily found herself wondering at her assumption and realised she had nothing to base it on.

‘Come on Barb, we both know I do not need a relationship at the moment. I thought you agreed with me on that.'

‘I know – just teasing. But, you know, that's when they happen – when it's the last thing you're looking for.' ‘So I've heard. But I've got too much else to deal with right now.' ‘Brilliant timing on Jake's part, though. He'll be able to give you some advice on the house.'

‘That's what I'm counting on – an objective opinion.'

‘Oh well, it might be good to keep it businesslike, then.'

‘Hmm.'

‘What about Nathan Lucas?'

‘What about him?'

‘I thought he was nice. Well, the little I saw when I met him at David's dad's funeral.'

‘He's nice enough.'

Nathan, an assistant bank manager, was the son of some family friends, and was fresh from his own marriage breakup. His mother and Enid had recently – and none-too-subtly – tried to match-make them. Emily found him friendly enough, and they'd got along well. But she wasn't prepared to think anything of him beyond that.

‘Is he still single?'

‘Jesus, Barbara, you're sounding like my bloody mother!'

‘Sorry, just curious. So are you going to ask his advice – from a financial perspective?'

Emily had wondered if it was worth discussing with Nathan. He had, after all, offered to give her any financial advice she needed. But what could he say? It wasn't like she could afford a loan.

‘No. I thought about it and decided there isn't any point. Like you said, it's a good deal. I need a lawyer more than a banker. He'd probably want to lend me money I can't afford to pay back.'

‘I think the GFC put a stop to that, Em.'

‘I know, but you know what I mean. Anyway, for all I know, he's probably back in Adelaide by now. So why are you calling, anyway?'

‘Oh, just to check there wasn't anything extra that you needed.'

‘Why does everyone assume I've forgotten something? I've just had my father asking the same question.'

‘No need to get prickly. I was just checking.'

‘I know. Sorry. I'm a bit stressed.'

‘About Jake coming to stay?'

‘Yes and no. Actually, about telling my mother about the offer to buy the house.'

‘Well, you don't have to worry about that now that she's not coming. You just relax and enjoy the fine company,' she added with a chuckle.

‘I've been so on edge I hadn't quite processed that I've got a reprieve on that one. You're right. I'll worry about telling her another day. Thanks Barbara, you're a darling.'

‘I know. So if there isn't anything you need, I'll get cracking.'

‘Thanks. And sorry about being snippy.'

‘Already forgotten.'

Emily hung up, smiling. She was just so lucky to have Barbara in her life.

She went through her mental checklist yet again and concluded that everything was definitely ready for Jake's arrival, as it had been the time before, and the time before that.

There was nothing more to do, but if she had another coffee she'd be squelching when she walked – not to mention looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights from all the caffeine. She got up, called Grace to her, and left the kitchen.

She and Grace took their usual route up the gully, past the orchard to the disused well. But as she started to come back down, she took a moment to pause and study the house and its surrounds, trying to work out where the boundary of the proposed twenty acres would be if she went ahead with the subdivision.

If
she went ahead? She frowned. The only ‘if' was around finance.

It was a damn good deal – a no-brainer as Barbara and then David had pointed out. They'd even offered to loan her some money if she needed it. And they were soon to be quite flush thanks to David's father's recent death. It was very good of them to offer, but of course Emily could never accept money from her friends.

The actual cost wasn't really the problem – she could manage the first year's payment and then had time to gather the next. The problem lay in what happened after that. The house would need extensive renovation. Most of it could probably be done over time, but some things like the roof needed replacing as soon as possible. That would be costly.

One decent hail storm and she'd be well and truly stuffed. There were pinholes in the roof that let the sun shine through onto the verandah – who knew how bad the main roof sheets were? She stared down at the rusty iron and asked no one in particular to hold it all together.

And what if two months down the track the electricity shat itself and the whole place needed to be re-wired?

She'd have to find some way to make money in the absence of a job, which seemed to be as rare as hen's teeth at the moment. She was pretty sure selling jam at a Melbourne market wouldn't cut it, no matter how good the jam and how swanky the market. Anyway, the main fruiting season was almost over. She'd have to wait until April for the figs to be ripe. She could do orange marmalade, but oranges wouldn't be ripe for ages yet either. There had to be some other way.

She told herself it wasn't just about proving her mother wrong; it was about proving herself right – that she'd made the right decision leaving John, and that she could be successful in her own right, without the tag of ‘John Stratten's wife' hanging around her neck. She didn't want the label of ‘wife' at all. Possibly forever.

Emily sighed. If only she were more of a risk-taker. Plenty of people would just jump in and worry about all the boring details later. But Emily wasn't like that, and she doubted she ever would be. Of course she'd signed John's financial settlement without any thought, but that was different. She took a deep breath.

Maybe Jake would have some ideas – he seemed pretty grounded and cautious. Emily found it odd that she was okay with the thought of discussing her poor financial situation with him, a relative stranger.

She didn't think she'd ever have such a conversation even with her cousin Liz, and they'd known each other for ever. But Liz tended to be a bit critical and blunt, and had hurt Emily quite badly a few times. And if Liz discussed it with Aunty Peggy,
she'd
tell Enid, and then there'd be a whole conference of people telling her what and what not to do.

Emily took another deep breath and marched on. Grace ran on ahead with her nose to the ground, following the scents of the early-morning rabbits, foxes, and wild cats.

Instead of following the creek bed straight back down to the house, she turned towards the outbuildings that were to be included in the subdivision.

What would she do with a smelly old shearing shed, she wondered, peering through a window so grimy it was almost a mirror. Nothing for a long, long time, she concluded. There was no point going inside and beginning to dream of what it could be turned into.

Next to the shearing shed was a smaller shed with a set of double wooden doors, their grain wide and grey in colour – signs of paint long gone. The door opened stiffly but easily enough, its hinges issuing a deep metallic protesting groan. A raised slab of concrete with large rusting bolts standing up out of it sat on a dirt floor stained dark by many years of oil and fuel spills.

The old generator room, Emily surmised, from the days before the main power line crossed the paddock from the main road to the house. Now it seemed to be a storage room for empty chemical drums.

The toxic smells filled Emily's nostrils and she puckered up her nose in distaste. The first thing she'd do if she bought –
when
she bought – the place would be to get rid of them via the Council's farm chemical drum disposal program.

Though she couldn't really complain. It was a small job compared to other farms she'd been to where rusting car bodies and junk of every sort was mixed with scrub, hidden behind sheds, and left for the next generation to deal with. Trevor and Donald Baker were quite tidy compared to many around.

Emily's stomach growled, reminding her she was yet to eat breakfast. She'd been too busy and too nervous earlier. She headed down the gentle slope to the back of the house and around to the side door into the kitchen.

She made herself two pieces of toast with butter and vegemite and sat side-on to the glass-panelled door that led out onto the verandah.

Strips of green and red light cut across the table in front of her. She nibbled her toast, taking small mouse-like bites to kill time. Occasionally she glanced at Grace – who was snoozing on her mat in the corner – and wished she too could so easily shift between being totally excited and totally relaxed.

Emily was suddenly startled by a hefty three-barrelled knock on the front door, so loud that the echo bounced around in the emptiness of the hall. Grace leapt to attention and sat with her head cocked, waiting.

Who could it be? It was too early for Jake – well, unless he'd left Whyalla really early, which he could have, she supposed.

She got up, her heart pounding with the anticipation of seeing him again.

‘Coming!' she called, and made her way quickly down the hall.

Chapter Three

With a shaking hand, Emily opened the door and was surprised to find Nathan Lucas on her doorstep. His face lit up with a big grin.

‘Hi. Merry Christmas. Thought I'd pop by to see your new digs.'

On Christmas friggin' morning?!

Emily was momentarily speechless. She frowned slightly, then her upbringing kicked in.

‘Oh, Nathan. Hello. Right, well, it's not very exciting I'm afraid. But it's home,' she said with a shrug.

She felt rooted to the spot. The polite thing to do would be to invite him in, but knowing her luck, Jake would then turn up. And how would
that
look?

Um, like you're having coffee with a friend
.

‘I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just turned up unannounced – you're probably really busy,' Nathan said, starting to shift his feet and look about awkwardly.

‘Not at all, come on in,' Emily said, finally shaking off her hesitation. She stepped aside to let him in. ‘I do actually have a friend coming a little later – to stay for the weekend – and Mum and Dad and some friends are coming for lunch…'
Well, Mum isn't, but… Shit, should I invite Nathan for lunch too? No, surely he's having it with his parents.

‘Well, aren't we the social butterfly,' Nathan teased as he pecked her on the cheek and stepped past her into the dark hall.

She didn't know what to make of his tone, but found herself bristling in response. ‘It's not normally like this, believe me.'

‘Wow, lovely wide hall,' he said, gazing about.

‘Yes, it's what they call a cricket pitch hall, though I haven't measured it.'

‘Great colour – you've just repainted haven't you?'

‘Yes. But the colour wasn't my choice. It was leftover from a friend – Barbara, who you met at the funeral. I do like it, but I probably would have gone more marigold than cream. I may as well give you the grand tour, since everything's pretty much on the way to the kitchen at the back.'

‘It's gorgeous. And these floorboards are beautiful.'

As she showed him through the house, the initial tension left Emily and she felt prouder with every bit of praise Nathan heaped on her. She offered him a coffee and they sat at the kitchen table.

‘I can't believe you and Des did all this yourself,' he said. ‘I'm not a bit handy with tools – I wouldn't have known where to start.'

‘Actually, Nathan,' Emily said, after they'd been sipping their drinks for a few moments, ‘there's something I've been wondering about. Maybe you can help me. Do you have any idea how much it costs to subdivide a property?'

‘Not off the top of my head, but I could find out easily enough – this place you mean?'

Emily was suddenly unsure if she should be discussing it with him. Would it jinx things? Would he tell anyone? Could she really trust him?

‘Oh, just dreaming really,' she said, blushing slightly, and peering down into her two-thirds full mug.

‘Come on Em, you can't just leave it at that. Honestly, I'm the vault of discretion if you want someone to bounce ideas off. You'd have my absolute confidence. Trust me, I'm a banker,' he said with a grin, before taking a long slug of coffee.

She took another sip while getting her thoughts in order. ‘All right – if you promise to keep this to yourself. Because it might not happen anyway.'

‘Scout's honour,' he said, saluting.

‘Well, my landlords have offered to sell me the house and surrounding land if I pay to have it surveyed and subdivided…'

‘Can you afford to buy? The place must be worth a couple of hundred thousand.'

‘They're both on the pension, which they have to be careful not to jeopardise. So they're offering the most amazingly generous terms.'

‘If it sounds too good to be true, Emily, chances are… Sorry, I don't mean to sound negative – it's the cautious banker in me. Sorry. Go on.'

‘The place looks quite tidy, but there's a lot of work to be done – it was empty for years, so it's not worth nearly what it once would have been. Anyway, they only want twenty annual payments of ten thousand – five to each of the brothers. No interest.'

‘Wow, well that really is a good deal then, and probably too good to pass up if you've got the first payment and can afford the subdividing costs. Maintenance might be your biggest problem. But I don't suppose you'd be living here if the main structure was a total disaster.'